workshop 4 - a belated and incomplete response

I started to go through last week's online workshop, but I never finished it (I looked at Window Live ID, Yahoo! and Second Life, but didn't get around to Lavalife). Since I'm terribly busy at the moment, I'll very likely not get around to to finishing it, so I decided to post my thoughts on the part I did anyway, although they're rather rambly. I thought looking at these three websites threw up some interesting points.

For one thing, in terms of gender, all of the sites presented it as a binary, even though not everyone is born unambiguously male or female. (This, of course, is a common assumption.)

Mostly I noticed that the sites assumed a privileged Western user. For instance, all of them asked for a precise birthdate, but although it's normal for us in the West to know our birthdates, it isn't necessarily going to be true for every user. In the same way, Windows Live ID and Yahoo! both asked for first name and surname, although there must be people on earth who don't have a surname. The choices of "secret questions" on all three sites also had a tendency to assume a privileged Western background, with questions referring to things like the user's high school mascot or favourite place to holiday.

I'm not sure whether to put this down to racism. The kind of discrimination this shows is more in terms of life experiences and knowledge than race. I think I would label it as a symptom of thoughtless racism (if that makes sense), not direct racism - the developers simply assumed that users of their websites would be much like themselves, and didn't think much about how this might make things difficult for other users. In general, it's a fair assumption - but it's a dangerously self-perpetuating sort of assumption, I think. Users will tend to come to websites that cater for "their sort" of people. If websites don't fit them, they will either avoid those websites or fit their identities to the sites' categories.

some thoughts...

When I was reading the second article in this weeks reading (sorry the name escapes me- was written by the Korean/American guy who used a black avatar online) one of the things he said got me thinking.
He was talking about a university (I think) who has introduced policy to forbid any racial identification on any of its online services. The author identified the problem with doing this in that it would 'silence' an aspect of many users of non-white race (I hate using that word by the way, its so Victorian and problematic) who define their identity, at least in part, by their background.

My ethnicity is Scottish and English aka: white, so the issues of race online have never occured to me before.
But I wonder if anyone on this blog with an ethnic background easily identified by either name or appearance, would like to offer an opinion- if you were a member of this university, would it be nice sometimes to be race-anonymous? Would you enjoy not having to worry about the issues that arise from what the author described as unconcious racial profiling, or would you resent the censorship that doesn't affect your fellow white students (as they are probably complicit in the 'whiteness=assumed' camp) ????????

In response to Therese's question, I do believe that whiteness is assumed unless otherwise stated, although this depends on what kind of site you are on. That was interesting about the Hong Kong site in the first article-that despite it being a HK site, the 'native' (another problematic word) Chinese were scorned and writers were judged on their proficiency in English- talk about cultural cringe!

Anyway that is the end of my rambling monlogue. Any thoughts?

Week Seven: E/Racing Markers of Difference / Menu Driven Identities

Some questions to get us started:
Is race less fixed in cyberspace? Is it voluntary or experimental? And do you think race is more overt in virtual environments? Why?
Is ‘whiteness online a racial category or a universal assumption unless otherwise noted?
Is all identity ‘menu driven’?
Are online interactions inherently gendered? Do gender relations operate differently online compared with face to face interactions?



For me, facebook puts the questions of fixed categories and gender relations into context. I’m sure everyone knows someone who has freaked out over a supposed lover whose online status remained single despite promises of commitment and a number of ‘more than friendly encounters’. Real life relationship ‘status’ is a lot more fluid than the limited and stark options facebook presents. But sometimes, if sufficient time is wasted on the site, the facebook status options can start to define your physical life.

In relation to race, definitely, at least in the websites I access, whiteness is assumed. Whiteness is a vague, ill-defined race as such, however i think that 'white supremecy' is probably more fixed in a virtual environment.

useful online book

I just came across A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, and thought some of you might find it handy for this unit. It's simply an online version of a print book, but since it's an expensive print book that the UWA library doesn't have a copy of...

The article on blogging looks interesting. Although it doesn't seem to cover much more ground than the articles we studied, it's much more recent - A Companion to Digital Literary Studies only came out this year. There are also articles on virtual worlds and computer games, which might be handy when we come to those topics later in the semester.

(The same website also offers an online version of an earlier book, A Companion to Digital Humanities. The UWA library does have a copy of this book, so it's perhaps not as useful.)

JenniCAM and Facebook

As I read the article on JenniCAM, I was amazed that someone would actually be doing stuff like what she did. At the same time, I was also impressed!! I agree with what Anna has posted that this is similar to Big Brother...hahaha! As I started to read the article, I asked myself this question...why would someone do this...I would not want to reveal my personal life to the public...then again, she had a purpose...I suppose.

Now, to specifically answer the question posted:

Does the internet need regulation?

Yup, I think it is necessary for the internet to have some form of regulations. This is to prevent the “newcomers” from being preyed upon. Also it gives parents a form of satisfaction and security that their children are safe. Being an international student, my husband is in Singapore while I am here with my daughter and yeah, our relationship has survived despite the ‘separation’, thanks to the internet, MSN messenger and Google talk...so yup, I am comfortable with this online business but, still am careful not to mess too much with it and talking to strangers...Like in the good old days where our parents discouraged us from talking to strangers, now I am careful not to talk to strangers online.

I was recently introduces to Face book, much to the pleasure of my best friend in uni. I am amazed how many people I actually knew are on Face book and I was able to contact people I have hardly contacted in years...amazing how the world has become so small since the coming of the internet. As such, I am now able to contact my friends...and ignore my 'not-so' friends..so yeah, in a way it's an invasion of privacy...yet I have the choice to select my friends or ignore those I don't want to have contact with...so I still have my privacy intact...to a certain exent!!hooray for that...